


Adolescence

by Emeka



Series: dumb soft shtuff [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: M/M, precocious crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 00:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18083549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeka/pseuds/Emeka
Summary: Raigh tries to be grown enough.





	Adolescence

The sky is pink and lilac with the setting sun. Raigh goes up on the battlements now and again to brood at it, and press his hands on the cooling white stone. It's usually quiet, an increasingly valuable trait with all the new Heroes.

Tonight there is someone already here. He pauses in the doorway, at the top of the stair's landing. With only one person there's no doubt still plenty of space for him to be alone, but the sight of the figure's long, flowing red hair inspires an old feeling of dread. This strange fuzzy sensation in his chest is weak, and he'd rather not deal with it in any proximity.

He turns, and is about to head back down when Arvis looks back at him. An apologetic smile graces his face. "Sorry," he says, voice smooth and low, like manna from the heavens. "I've seen you go up here, and had to see the view for myself."

"O-oh." Raigh feels himself deflate a moment--his heart is pounding too fast--then puffs himself back up. "I think it's the best around by far." Gods, how can he kill people and still sound like such a baby?

"It is beautiful," Arvis says, standing now mostly in profile. He looks back onto the fields below. The sun limns his hair with brilliant fiery shades of twinkling yellows and oranges, so awesome a view that Raigh feels his heart leap into his throat. "I've missed views like this."

"From your home?"

"Yes."

Raigh hovers a moment where he is, then walks forward. "I never saw anything like this when I was little. I mean, when I started travelling... I saw more, some pretty great. But I grew up in an orphanage, so," he shortly brings himself up. If he keeps rambling, his cheeks will burn clean off.

"An orphanage?" Arvis looks at him with a distinct expression of pity, one that would wound his pride if it didn't somehow feel _good_ too. 

He shouldn't, but what he wants for one intense second is to bury his head in his chest and cry out the whole sob story. Of course he does nothing of the sort, but that the desire existed at all is... troubling. How can he expect Arvis, or anyone else, to treat him like an adult?

Not that he really cares what anyone thinks. But.

"It wasn't so bad," he says, trying to focus on the sky to get the words out. Lilac and pink layered through the sky, softly shadowing the wisps of clouds with their touch of grey. The orange horizon that had burnished Arvis' hair, that still hurts his eyes, like the fire Arvis uses to do battle with. Everything about experiencing it had likewise burned itself into his mind. "There were the other kids... and my brother, I guess."

Harsh reds and oranges. The heat he felt from fifty paces away. Red hair dancing in the inferno, becoming one with it.

He had felt _something_ in the face of that power.

"Lugh, isn't it? It's good you had each other." If Arvis wonders at all about his parents, he doesn't ask. But anyone can read between those lines. "Children, I think... shouldn't be torn apart." There's something there, his wistful voice says. Raigh assumes it has something to do with his children, who do not seem very close, with each other or him but for Julia.

"But," Arvis continues, looking down at him and smiling so--so kindly--"in this place, you have the rest of us too. Including myself, if you like."

"...what, as family?"

"Are friends better for you? Though I wouldn't mind another son." He laughs, the first Raigh has ever heard it, and it sounds exactly like he would have guessed. Solemn, dignified. Not stupidly boisterous. "Actually, you remind me of Julius. He doesn't act like it now, but... he was a very sweet child, once."

Raigh can only stand petrified as he watches his hand reach for him, then feels his fingers card through his hair, pressing his palm into his cheek. Hot. Is it his face, or Arvis that feels like this?

"I feel like you're the same way."

Raigh mumbles something, he's not sure what. His throat works, and his mouth opens, barely. It sounds negatory. Denying maybe that he is or was a sweet child, or the comparison to Arvis' son. 

Arvis slides his hand out as easily as he put it in, barely leaving a strand out of place (and Raigh's cheek cool and tingling). He turns back to the horizon, and tucks back a curl of hair. "I hope the same thing for both of you. That one day... you can go back."

Raigh looks out too, but all he sees are shimmering watercolors. Pink and lilac, a child's colors, like the child he still is, however much he tries. He can't burn red yet, not for himself or anyone else.


End file.
